All I can say is that I'm now happier than ever that I ended up with a very common name - Sara. Granted, I do have what many consider to be the alternative spelling, but that just makes it so I'm sure to tell people who will be writing/typing my name out, "Sara, no H." However, I've noticed that apparently the "alternative" spelling as become so commonplace that many people will ask if there's an H or not before I even get to the "no H" part.

So your name is Saranoaitch?

*runs away laughing.. stops.. and figures someday there will be a child named that somewhere.*

I once had a student –a little boy from a Western African country– with the name Dieuveil (dee-uh-vay-ee. Hard to transcribe it.) which means "God watches" in French but I had never seen nor heard of that name before.

I used to know a Dieudonne. I wonder how common it is in West Africa to have similar names?

I once had a student –a little boy from a Western African country– with the name Dieuveil (dee-uh-vay-ee. Hard to transcribe it.) which means "God watches" in French but I had never seen nor heard of that name before.

I used to know a Dieudonne. I wonder how common it is in West Africa to have similar names?

I have been working on something involving going through long lists of Nigerian citizens and there are a large number of names such as Godswill, Godsgift, Godslove, Godspower and even a Godknows so I would imagine it is quite likely a relatively common thing.

I used to know a Dieudonne. I wonder how common it is in West Africa to have similar names?

The American version of Dieudonne is "Theodore" or "Dorothy." But many Americans would be surprised to be told that there had been a president named "God's gift."

Theodore is more correctly Greek

I once had to explain that Amadeus, Theophilus and Gottlieb all mean the same thing (Loving God in pseudo Latin, Greek and German) and that Mozart used all these forms in his life time, in different times and places. Worse of all, Amadeus started out as a joke and the version in his baptism record is actually Theophilus.

I decided to skip over Johann Chrysostomus, his other two baptismal names.

SIL wanted to name her son Mason, which is a cute name. The problem is her last name. Poor kid would have been: Mason Dixon.

And she saw nothing wrong with it, and didn't understand why people laughed when they heard it.

Logged

In the United States today, there is a pervasive tendency to treat children as adults, and adults as children. The options of children are thus steadily expanded, while those of adults are progressively constricted. The result is unruly children and childish adults. ~Thomas Szasz

My older sister lives in a community that specializes in invented names, but I have to say that Roshonna (Ro-SHAW-na) and LaVissa don't seem all that bad.

My cousin's brother-in-law and wife have named their four girls "J" names - similiar to Jakaya & Jaleesia. They were chosen/invented/constructed to have religious significance, if I understand correctly, and the parents will explain the reasoning if you ask them. Probably excellent reasoning, too, but still...

I haven't seen any wildly youneek names in my neck of the woods, but there are a few that make me privately roll my eyes: Gypsy (male), Cerulean (female), and Koi (male). How could the parents not realize that they were naming their son after a goldfish?